This is beautifully honest and reflective already. I tightened some phrasing, smoothed transitions, corrected a few grammar issues, and refined the flow while keeping your voice and imagery intact.
Making plans as a mom is always a rather fraught affair. The longer the plan – in terms of duration or distance – the more difficult it becomes to make final decisions with any hope of them actually coming to fruition.
Currently, I’m trying to look ahead to next year and figure out how to achieve personal goals while juggling my family’s overall health, wellness, and growth. This is a common game for mothers, one where we are usually tossing extremely breakable glasses rather than balls in the air. One step out of rhythm and everything shatters. Then we get to pick up the pieces, glue everything back together, and start juggling all over again.
My last year was full of juggling, with its fair share of shards and glue. Next year, I’d like to remove a few of the breakables so I can continue the process with some chance of success, or at least with a little less crashing.
However, choosing what to drop is harder than one might imagine.
For example, do I take away activities my girls are doing? If so, what? Horseback riding, gymnastics, violin, camps, hangouts – these are all healthy experiences that provide skills and memories for their future. If we truly had to let them go, of course we would, but while we can afford them, shouldn’t we give our children every chance to learn and grow? It feels selfish to take something away from them simply to make my own life easier.
So instead, I find myself looking at my own goals and aspirations. As a fiber arts teacher, I am building a business to help create a future where I can support our family during the quieter seasons of my husband’s work. However, as any entrepreneur knows, growing a business requires an incredible amount of time and dedication during a season of life when both already feel stretched painfully thin.
So where do I cut back? What aspects of work and planning do I reshape to help future me survive and, dare I say, thrive?
Stepping Back
One thing I’ve realized is that I cannot always volunteer in the ways I would like to. I usually make meals for new mothers at church, serve on Wednesday nights, and participate in so many other acts of service. For now, though, I think I need to step back and let some of those volunteer roles go – not forever, but for this season.
I love helping people in my community, and I don’t want to be away from those opportunities for long. But right now, I think it’s okay to focus more intentionally on my family and my goals. When I’m ready, I’ll reach out again and support others when and how I can.
Seeing the Forest for the Trees
In moments of exhaustion, it’s difficult not to stop and wonder: What in the world did I get myself into? What is the purpose of all this? Why am I even trying?
In those moments, I am training myself to pause and appreciate the bigger picture instead of focusing only on the difficult moment in front of me. I am trying to build a business around something I truly enjoy, even during a season when I don’t always feel I have the energy for it. And that’s okay. In those moments, I can embrace the tiredness and remember the goal: to build something meaningful, help support our family, and do so through work I genuinely love.
Focusing on My Children
Another goal I have for this year is not to get so lost in the chaos that I miss enjoying my children exactly as they are right now. I want to be present enough to appreciate this stage of life while we are living it. These are the moments they will look back on someday. Right now, they are building the foundation, both consciously and unconsciously, for the women they will eventually become. I want them to see what hard work can build, but also to understand that hard work does not have to blot out everything else. It does not preclude fun, love, family, rest, creativity, and joy.
