Thriving In Motherhood Podcast | Productivity, Planning, Family Systems, Time Management, Survival Mode, Mental Health, Vision

Learn about the transformative power of writing down morning and evening routines, prioritizing personal activities before engaging with family, and keeping the phone away in the morning for focused and productive mornings. Discover various activities for restorative evenings, such as journaling, crocheting, talking to friends, and practicing meditation. Prepare dinner in advance, check schedule, and do quick tasks. Join the waitlist for the upcoming beta course on creating a life you love with exclusive access to all course content at a discounted price.

Today I'm talking with Tiana Woodbury, mother of two boys. She shares her experiences with her first child having a club foot and what that process has been like for her. She talks about how to live with joy and make her own joy. She shares how she has learned to lower her expectations and love it! Key Points from this Episode: Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you have to adjust your plans quickly to make the most of the situation. With the help of other moms and doctors you can learn what you need to in order to make the best decisions for your family. Sometimes God gives us a gift of interest in things that we will one day need to know to help our children. Wherever you are, you are in charge of your happiness. Lower your expectations, but LOVE it. As a mom, give yourself some grace period. You are here to facilitate your children's experience, and sometimes we have different plans for our kids. Choosing your battles to let them explore their opinions can be freeing. Kids just want to be involved in the little things. See if you can find little ways to involve your kids in what YOU like so your bucket can be filled throughout your day. If you want to start with flowers, start with Zinnias or Sunflowers. Having a plan for something small to do every day keeps things exciting and moving forward. Warm toes are happy children. Invest in good shoes and outdoor time stays much more enjoyable for everyone. Consider winter (or major inside times) as a good chance to research and prepare for the next time you can go outside and put your research to use. Way exceeding your low expectations feels so much better than shooting SO high and being disappointed. When you move to a new place (temporarily or permanently) try to become a local. Explore the town and find the things that make that new place unique. Learn from your failures and don't give up!

Today I'm sharing with you the very specific steps that I took to prepare for a major life change. This can apply to a new baby, a move, or any other major life change. Key Points from this Episode: Notice your fears and anxieties. Write down thoughts. Create a new road map to work from - have a paradigm shift so you can operate from your circle of influence. Use your personal super powers to solve your problems and create a vision for how things can go. Share that vision with your family and step into the leadership role, building in systems and communication to support you through the time of change. Talk with your spouse or trusted friend when you get to stuck points in your thinking and aren't sure how to overcome certain fears or challenges If you have had an experience like this in the past, answer the question: "What was really traumatic or didn't go well that I don't want to repeat this time? What went really well that I do want to repeat this time?" Use what is hard now to intentionally practice and prepare for the challenges ahead. Create a false (and immediate) deadline to see what your absolute necessities are. It should be a shorter list that you can then focus your time and energy on before returning to the nice-to-dos. Think through what you need now and will need in the future. Make peace with the fact that taking care of yourself will allow you to keep taking care of others. Talk through specifics with your spouse so you can both be prepared for you to take that time.

Today I'm talking with Jeni Awerkamp, who was also my first interview back on Episode 1! We talk about how things have changed over the past two years and how Jeni has changed her experiences by changing her thoughts. Key Points from this Episode: Give ourselves space and grace when we are in transitional times in our lives. Recognize that we will have more stable times to come. Our thoughts have a huge role in us feeling well. Being able to shift the unhelpful thoughts can change our entire reality. Make the decision to act, not be acted upon. Tell yourself "you will no longer think negatively of yourself and your situations." Things happen that genuinely make you feel overwhelmed, but you can still control your thoughts around this. Replace the "I can't do this" thoughts with "There is a lot do here, but I can do it one step at a time." Replace "I'm all alone" with "I am never alone. Help is one phone call away." We don't have to be good at making mistakes, but we can be good at apologizing. Take things one day at a time, but in the realm of not worrying about something that happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow. Enjoy the moment you are in. Awareness of your thoughts is the first HUGE step to being able to change your thoughts. Ask yourself "What can I do?" and "How can I get help to get this done?" as you catalog your anxieties or concerns to see how to make your concerns something more concrete.

Today I'm talking about our family values. How I came up with them and how we implement them in our household. These help my family catch the vision and the values that help us get to where we want to go. Key Points from this Episode: Core values are unifying and keep our families together heading in the same direction. Turn your values into a family cheer! We try to "catch" the kids living these values and talk about it at dinner together. What we look for, we see more often in our lives! Creating this unity and culture will give them a gift as they leave the home that they will know that they have a place they were part of something and belong no matter what. Craft the values together as a family, or decide ahead of time and present them to your kids.

Today I'm talking with Jessica Ralston. She's a mother of six, homeschools, and she and her husband both run businesses out of their home. Today she shares her journey of going from a place of chaos and just surviving to taking some intentional steps to regain her personal power and take care of herself and, in turn, create a beautiful life for her family. Key Points from this Episode: The decision of being more intentional with physical health, can lead to being more intentional with other things. It builds momentum. Being in a victim or comparison mindset makes things feel worse. Be selfish. Take care of yourself. Everyone is going to be okay if you take a few minutes to take care of yourself. Shift your mindset to abundance, and gratitude, and being proactive. Our kids need to know that we are human people with needs and passions. We are our only advocates for our own needs. We need to take that responsibility seriously for ourselves. We don't have control over our kids, but we do have control over our own actions. Looking at the big picture can help put the small challenges and imperfections in perspective. When you're able to tackle your daily life with more joy and competence, then you're able to think more into the future about the bigger things that you can achieve too. Shift from an Parents vs Children mindset, into a Team mindset within the family. It allows everyone to work together and play together better. Try to decipher the big things from the little things. Learn your children's love languages because when the kids feel loved, they are more willing to listen and have hard conversations. Consider staggering bedtime to allow some individual time with each age group of your children.

Today, I'm sharing with you something I've been working on for years, which is the Three Pillars of Thriving and the Three Identities associated with them. This episode explains how you can actually thrive in any season of motherhood. Key Points from this Episode: The struggle between knowing that we are made for motherhood and feeling like it is REALLY hard is where these pillars grew out of. How we're think about life and ourselves is what influences our reality. Take time to notice where you are on these three pillars. The pillars take you from surviving to thriving. Pillar 1 - Scope is having a purpose, or intention, for your life. In the scriptures, we see examples of women with callings and purpose that have nothing to do with raising children. God has something else for them to do. God sees us as whole people. When you have Scope, it helps you go from feeling lost or stuck in the mundane to feeling confident and fulfilled and living with meaning and purpose. There are skills and systems involved in Scope to take you from one end of the spectrum to the other. Pillar 2 - Structure gives you a pattern or organization for reducing the mental and physical chaos in your life. This involves creating a strong family and recognizing that you are part of that family. Structure allows you to have the head space to think beyond the bare-bones essentials. Pillar 3 - Soul is looking at your total self. Your spirit, body, mind, and connection with God. This is where you can start to feel peace and joy and gratitude. This is where you are taken care of, where you have energy. Where we're filling our buckets so we can overflow into other people. This is where we are breaking down limiting beliefs. When any one of these three is being neglected, then things don't feel right. The model of Be, Do, Have teaches us that we need to focus on being one way before we do to then have the desired result. Identity 1 - Visionary - Someone who does thinking and planning about the future with imagination, creativity, and wisdom. Able to have dreams or visions (literally or metaphorically). Someone who seeks personal revelation from God. Identity 2 - Leader - Someone who has the art of motivating and connecting and empathizing with people to help them act towards achieving a common goal. Working towards putting people first while making your vision a reality. Identity 3 - Advocate - Someone who calls to one's aide. One who pleads the cause of another. In this case, you need to be your own advocate to ask for and make the space for the things you need. Advocate to yourself, for yourself to become aware of your thoughts and how you're interacting in the world.

Today, I'm talking with Annette Pimentel. She's a mother of six children and an author of children's non-fiction literature. Today we're talking about how she learned to embrace who she is to be an authentic mother and to use her strengths and talents to create a culture in her home that allows her to fully be her as well as to use her strengths to solve problems. Key Points from this Episode: Knowing the story of why you made a decision during a hard time helps form who you are. Being a mom doesn't mean you can't be authentic to yourself. Sometimes the best solutions we come up with are the ones that come from our core of passions and talents. The things we care about can be the center of your mothering. Those things can become your toolkit for being a mother. It takes creativity to truly be who we are and still solve those parenting problems, but they are the most authentic. Become friends with the librarians! They are an amazing resource and love seeing people who care about books. Books and stories (and the conversations you have about them) can help you maintain closeness with your children as they grow older. Check out books and read them before you read them to your kids if you think they might have a viewpoint that is uncomfortably different from your own so you can think through things you can talk about together. Stories about everyday people who can change the world are amazing. You don't have to be a famous person, or even particularly smart. You don't have to be rich. You just have to feel passionately about something and you can change the world! The family routines can allow your family to feel safe even when circumstances change. Your home becomes the safe haven when life around gets crazy. Resources This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. All the Way to the Top: How One Girl's Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything Girl Running Mountain Chef: How One Man Lost His Groceries, Changed His Plans, and Helped Cook Up the National Park Service Do you Really Want to Meet A Dinosaur

It's taken me years to figure out the logistics of creating and maintaining a clean home. Today, I'm taking you through the very practical aspects of how to declutter and how to clean. Key Points from this Episode: Getting rid of things does not equate to having a tidy home space. Creating a home for each thing (read: containers) helps the space feel neater. The Dollar Tree is a great option to find cheap containers. Use containers to help support your habits and routines. Find a routine for a pick up time at some point in your day. (We like 4pm) It lets me ignore a lot of the mess and enjoy the moments of the day knowing that there is a set time that things will be put in order again. Find one small step at a time for keeping an area clean. Start with practicing having everyone clear their plates after breakfast. Then add it loading dishes in the dishwasher. Then add in unloading the dishwasher. Adjust locations of things so kids can complete tasks. Adjust the time you have your meals so you have energy to handle the set up and clean up of the meal. Etc. Link a new habit to an existing one. If tooth brushing is well-established, add a "tooth brush tidy" and clean up their room when they finish brushing teeth. In our house, this includes (1) put away clothes that are out, (2) put away books, (3) put away toys, (4) put trash in the trash can. Hannah Rust teaches all about homemade cleaners and store-bought cleaners and real time cleaning in her course (see resources). It took away my paralysis surrounding cleaning. Having enough cleaning cloths makes it possible to have enough to last cleaning all week so you only have to wash towels once a week. Wipe down spaces as you're using them. Keeping cleaning supplies in the bathroom makes those spare moments usable. Resources This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. Simple Green Cleaning Course Use Discount Code THRIVING15 for 15% off! Atomic Habits by James Clear Cotton Washcloths

Today I'm talking with Hannah Rust. She's a mother of almost 3 children. We talk about when she realized that she can do things differently than the way she had always done them and differently than the way others have done thing around her. This lead to her decision to live very intentionally. Key Points from this Episode: Choosing an unmedicated and natural birth for her second pregnancy was one of turning point decisions that lead to intentionality. Speak more kindly to yourself! Recognize that we cannot define ourselves simply by what we get done in the day. Just because you have done something one way does not mean you cannot change your mind! Having a strategic plan for money prevents it from disappearing unknowingly. Catching yourself when you start negative self-talk is the first step to changing it. Replacing it with a phrase like "I am enough" can combat it. Understanding where you are on the path from Surviving to Thriving allows you to name where you are and understand that it's a season that can and will change. Changing seasons in the backwards direction does not mean you are slipping or failing. It's a cycle! Being tidy is a skill, not a personality trait. Clearing out the mess and opening up the time that you used to take to deal with your mess opens the door for you to ask the bigger questions about how you want to spend your time intentionally. Getting rid of the clutter allows you to actually clean, not just spending all the time putting away the clutter. Our kids are human beings. We are not better than them just because we are older and bigger and know more. They deserve respect just like another adult or friend does. How we label our children is how they end up turning out. We see what we focus on. Resources Simple Green Cleaning eCourse Connect with Hannah Instagram: @daydancer Website: daydancer.com