Are you setting yourself up for failure?

Jv Garcia via Unsplash

Keep the house clean.
Dress your kids well.
Don't waste your education.
​Be ambitious.
Be on time.
Don't 'let yourself go'.
Bounce back to your pre-pregnancy weight.
Buy organic.
​Cook from scratch.
Eat dinner together.
Don't give too much screen time.
Volunteer at school.
Do crafts together.
Don't live in yoga pants.
​(But make time for yoga.)
Enjoy it while it lasts! They grow up so quickly!

WHEW.

Let's face it. There's a lot of pressure on moms. The images you see online don't help. Well-meaning 'advice' from strangers and family doesn't help, either. But today I'm here not to talk about pressure that comes from others, but the pressure we put on ourselves.

Feeling the pressure

A mom I coached for the first time told me,

“I feel like I have to fight through every day, like every day is a race”.

​Her task lists at home and at work overloaded her. She felt she had taken on too much, yet didn’t feel the freedom to take anything off her plate.

"If this pace continues," she told me, "something bad will happen."

And on top of that was pressure she had put on herself.

When our commitments harm, not help

One commitment this mom had made to herself was to exclusively breastfeed her daughter for one year. It was something she’d done for her first two kids and was determined to do for her third.

​The thing was - it wasn't easy. Committing to feeding her baby only breast milk meant painful pumping sessions, interrupted work days, and an incredible amount of stress over whether her daughter had enough to eat.

As she sat with me, tears began to run down her cheeks.

“I can’t give her formula, I just can’t. But I’m so DONE with pumping.”

“What would it mean to you if you gave your daughter formula?” I asked.

“That I failed her. I know - that sounds crazy, and I would NEVER say that to any of my friends. But I really feel that way.”

By this time, even bigger streams of tears were falling as she dabbed her face with a tissue. This mom loved her kids. They were clothed, fed, and safe. She was doing the best she could.

​And yet, because of the pressure she'd put on herself, she felt like she was on the brink of failure.

Have you ever felt this way?

​Without knowing it, you may have an expectation of yourself that is setting you up for failure. 

Finding freedom

Two weeks later, this mom of three and I checked in.

“I bought formula,” she told me.

​What?! I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

"Oh my gosh!" I said, "Tell me more."

“One day, I picked her up from daycare. Her teacher told me they didn’t have enough milk and that she was hungry. So they fed her a bottle of water. She was fine. But I realized I was making it all about me, not about her. It was about my own pride! My baby doesn’t care. It’s about her own sustenance!”
​
My client believed that a choice to relieve her stress and care for her daughter in a way she hadn’t expected would mean failing as a parent. Then truth - in the form of her daughter drinking a bottle of water - spoke to her!

​She realized she COULD make a choice to give herself some breathing room - and still be a great parent to her daughter.

She saw the false dichotomy of {breastfeeding = good mom} and {formula feeding = failure} for what it was: A LIE. She was a good mom who pumped and used formula as needed.

She dropped a canister of formula off at daycare and breathed a sigh of relief.

Your turn

Is there an area of life where you're disappointed in yourself?

​A place where you're feeling stress?

I wonder whether this mom's story can help you. Here's what I learned from her.

Step 1: Observe where you feel like you're failing.
Maybe it's being on time for school, looking put-together, or serving your kids healthy meals and snacks. Take a few days to look for where you consistently have a sense of feeling bad, avoidance, or even dread.

Step 2: Articulate the expectation you've put on yourself that's causing the stress.
It's incredible what we expect of ourselves that we haven't ever put into words! For the mama above, our session allowed her to articulate, "Feeding my daughter formula would mean that I failed her."

Step 3: Let truth speak into the expectation you have of yourself.
Sit with that expectation for a minute or two. Does anything sound off about it? Is it something you'd say to a friend? What might be the truer alternative to what you believe?

​Jana E., a mom in one of my Facebook groups, shares: "Keeping the house cleaned/organized [is where I put undue pressure on myself]. I felt like because I was a stay at home mom I should be able to keep the house nearly spotless. The truth is I can’t!"

(Did you catch that? In three sentences, Jana went through all three of the steps above!)

My heart for you

Maybe, through the steps above, you'll find a broader definition of what it means to be a 'good mom'.

Maybe you'll find a false dichotomy staring you in the face.

​Maybe, just maybe, you'll find that making a choice to make life less stressful for yourself will still allow you to be the kind of woman you'd like to be: present, loving, and bringing all of what she has to the world around her.