When Moms Go
‘Next-Level’
It’s the hardest thing to do as a mom – imagining living fully, authentically, practicing your passions daily, and living out your dreams when there are toddlers crawling on your face or homework or “HOLY HELL I was supposed to be there at 3pm!”
I get it.
I’ve spent a LOT of time thinking about when I was younger and used to think I could do anything – feminism set the perfect stage for me to live exactly how I wanted.
Family.
Career.
Independence.
Health.
Freedom.
Then you get into it. The babies and the endless nights and super early mornings and suddenly time goes and you are just surviving. And it’s not even that you don’t have time or logistical ability to pursue the other things that matter to you.. It’s literally that you stop wanting to.
You’re tired.
And it’s all you can do to at least try and get a YouTube workout in at some point this week so you stop totally cringing when you look in the mirror.
But from where I am, I get to see the stress of it all and how it impacts moms. The women raising the next generation. And for their sakes, and the sakes of the wee eyeballs staring up to them to learn how to navigate the world.. Let’s change this conversation a bit.
I see it like we are over-estimating what it is that needs to happen in order for us to be happy and feel fulfilled in all senses as moms!
Within any goal, there are always levels. You are either really struggling, you are surviving, you are thriving, or you are at the helm driving that bitch momma.
“We are over-estimating what it is that needs to happen in order for us to be happy and feel fulfilled.”
- Struggling
- Surviving
- Thriving
- Driving
The Momma Up-Level
You can’t go from struggling to driving in one solid leap momma, and yet that is exactly what every good marketer will convince you you are supposed to do! But for a THOUSAND reasons NO.
This is what messes everyone up!
I’m only going to give you three reasons why understanding these four different levels of any given goal is insanely important – Struggling, surviving, thriving, or driving.
But…
#1
You have to feel change in your bones and in your soul.
There are a lot of things in this world that we can ‘conceive of’ or understand in a really cerebral sense, but not ever truly believe. Not until you DO IT. It’s like falling in love again after being destroyed by someone. Suddenly, you do. And you get it – but hell no that was not going to happen two Kleenex boxes into it. There’s a lot of STUFF – a lot of learning, a lot of new routines, a lot of understanding your identity without that person etc etc that happens before someone new.
The same is true on a fitness or health journey. If you are struggling, and you want to be driving, like.. TOMORROW.. you won’t succeed momma. Because you haven’t done the routines, the learning, the identity, and you won’t believe it’s possible yet.
And the truth is, it ISN’T possible yet. When you are struggling that hard, all you need to do is get to a point where you are surviving.. One level momma.
#2
You can’t have an authentic transformation if you aren’t willing to be seen for who you are.
When I first ask moms, “Are you struggling, surviving, thriving, or driving..” it’s a hard question to answer. Because damnit, you’re not supposed to be struggling, or just surviving, or anything but the mom who has her shit together.
When I first ask moms, “Are you struggling, surviving, thriving, or driving..” it’s a hard question to answer. Because damnit, you’re not supposed to be struggling, or just surviving, or anything but the mom who has her shit together.
But ultimately it’s like lying when a nutrition coach (me) asks you what you’re eating. The eyes always veer slightly to the left as you leave out the majority of the ‘bad’ stuff but who’s kidding who, here?
How do you ever go next level if you are not honest about WHERE.YOU.ARE.AT and.. almost more importantly, who you actually ARE.
We all put out different representations of ourselves based on judgements and situations – you’re the ‘organized’ one at work, the ‘fun’ one with the girls or whatever..
But when it comes to going next level? I’d much rather see YOU do it than see you try and up-level some imagined representation of yourself. That is also WAY too much work. I can’t remember to pee most days never mind try to adopt some invented new version of a past representation of what I thought I wanted to be. (omg I even hate that sentence.)
#3
Skipping too many levels is too goddamned overwhelming.
Here’s the thing (and it really is a thing).
I WANT you to be thinking about how it feels to be DRIVING. I want you to imagine it down to the last detail if you can, if it’s not too scary or shocking to try and remember or embrace your passions outside of your kiddos again.
I want you to know your end game intimately.
BUT.
Planning that now is way too much. It’s too overwhelming. And if you try, you’ll scare the shit out of yourself before you take action.
You need to know – literally know – what has to be true for you each time you up-level. Meaning when you go from struggling to surviving – how will you know? When you go from thriving to finally driving, how will you know that? What are those benchmarks?
If you are very overweight for example, and you want to be truly fit and healthy because you’ve maybe seen how it’s affected your parents, or it’s affecting your ability to MOM as hard as you want to, and you are STRUGGLING.. For you it may only take starting to walk for 20 minutes a day to bring you from struggling to surviving. That may be enough for both your body and mind to allow you to SEE what else is possible.
But then this same person gets to a point where they are thriving – they have lost the weight they wanted to, their base-line health is great, they have the energy to MOM like they want to, and now to push them into the drivers seat, it may mean that they have to start looking at MORE areas of their lives – the whole ‘life pie’ to truly get the balance they want in order to go next -level.
The family time, the career, the spiritual connection, the community – whatever ‘pieces’ of the pie resonate with her.. Now she can look at a broader picture that simply wasn’t possible when just walking for 20 minutes was what she needed.
ALL OF THIS TO SAY, MOMMA….
We’ve got to settle in.
We have to be real about what the hell we can handle in the moment and when we know we are ready for more.
Because you CAN get to a place when it feels organic and RIGHT to ask this universe for more – to a place where you are ready to accept more – IF.. If you allow yourself to feel all the little defeats and wins, and celebrate BOTH, along the way.
Trust me, a hell of a lot can open up for you as long as you let go of the two hundred million pounds of guilt and judgement you’ve got delicately balancing on your forehead.
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