Having a purpose can get you through the hardest moments in motherhood.
If you ever feel like you’re just going through the motions of motherhood, putting out fires and reacting to life’s demands, having a defined purpose is the solution.
In this episode, I’m diving deep into how you can shift from living on autopilot to living with intention by discovering your purpose. I share simple strategies for aligning your daily actions with your purpose, helping you create a more fulfilling, balanced life as a mom.
Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed or just looking to add more meaning to your routine, this episode will give you the tools to start living purposefully today. Tune in and start embracing purpose-driven motherhood.
If you’re a mom, you’re in the right place. This is a space designed to help you overcome challenges and live your best life. I’d love for you to join me inside the Mom On Purpose Membership where we take this work to the next level.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to Mom On Purpose, where it’s all about helping moms overcome challenges and live their best lives. My hope is by being here, you are more inspired to become the mom you are made to be. I’m Natalie, your host, a wife, boy, mom, dog, mama, Chicagoan, and former lawyer turned professionally certified coach. If you’re here to grow, I can help. Let’s go.
Hello my beautiful friends. Welcome to the podcast in today’s episode about finding your why purpose-driven motherhood. I just have to say that I did not realize how purpose-driven I was until I created a class for the Mom On Purpose Membership, which was released on the first of this month. So if you’re not in there, you have to get in there and get this class because it really teaches everything that I use in my life for defining my purpose, setting my priorities, and then creating a balanced life based on that purpose and those priorities.
And what I realized through creating this class is that I am extremely purpose-driven in the very best way. Obviously I’ve always cared about purpose and intentional living and that’s why it’s called Mom On Purpose. But what I hadn’t connected was how much I’m willing to go through, how much I’m willing to sacrifice, how much I’m willing to do hard things is because I have a really strong sense of purpose. So let me first tell you what my purpose is and give you an example and then I’m going to kind of talk you through just what having a purpose can do for you. The difference between having a why, like a reason why you’re doing something versus your overarching purpose. And kinda like the pitfalls of not doing this work, right? Because you don’t have to, we know lots of people who don’t do any of this work at all and they seem to be just fine.
But what’s the difference? Like why live life this way? So my purpose is to grow my family and be the best mom that I can be. And when I clearly defined that and realized that’s what my purpose is, I fully understood why I am so willing to do what I’m doing right now. I’m pregnant with my third child, about to have my third baby boy in three years. I’ve grown my family relatively quickly. And when I got pregnant with my third, I had several friends reach out to me and also just people online and ask me like, how did I know that I wanted to have a third child? And it wasn’t until I created this class Purpose, Priorities, and Balance that I really realized it’s because I’m so clear on my purpose and my purpose keeps me making decisions that align with it.
It keeps my priorities so much easier to make decisions through. So on like a really practical level, I don’t travel a ton and I have lots of friends and peers who love to travel and travel often and it’s just not a top priority. Do I travel from time to time? Yeah, but I have little ones right now, another one on the way. So traveling just isn’t high up there as a priority. My focus right now is growing my family and being the best mom I can be. My priorities are my family and my business, my clients, you. So those two things are one and two, are there other things that I do in my life? Of course. But when I think about making decisions, I always filter it through that, the one and two priorities and then anything else goes after that. And that’s really what the definition of a priority is.
There has to be an order. It makes decision making so much easier. So let’s take a step back and just define what purpose even is compared to what having a why is and how. I think this is really helpful. And what you can take away from this episode to apply to your own life. So, so I like to think of purpose as your mission. It’s the impact that you want to make on the world. And I say that, but I don’t mean necessarily that it’s about you giving. It’s just that you are a human being as you know. And how you live your life will have an impact. And it doesn’t have to be an altruistic purpose, and I talk about this in the course, but whatever you do, just by being here, you are contributing. ’cause you’re contributing through evolution, you continue to evolve yourself and that has an impact.
So when you’re thinking about your purpose, it’s a bigger picture. It’s the overarching mission that you have for your life versus your why is much more of your emotional reason that drives your purpose. It’s that internal motivation for the mission. So they’re both intertwined and sometimes used interchangeably. But I do think it’s helpful to break it out like this. So if we go back to my purpose, we can kind of talk about my why. So if my purpose is to grow my family and be the best mom I want to be, right? That’s kind of my overarching goal mission in life. My why, like why do I want that is much more personal and rooted in my desire to create my family and instill the values that I didn’t experience growing up and just have this really family oriented, life that I always wanted.
And this why drives my emotional energy behind my purpose and it gives it so much more depth. It’s what keeps me committed to my purpose during hard times. I have a really strong why. Now this is different than why do I want this versus, you know, you could say my siblings who had a, you know, the same upbringing as me, but they don’t have this purpose. I think that’s okay. I don’t think we have to know why we have the desire for the purpose that we have. I think they’re god-given. I think they’re meant for you and they will guide you towards your best life. So I don’t try to figure out why I have the purpose, but instead I’m connected to the emotion and the reasons driving me. So why is it important to me to live out this purpose? Because all through my childhood, I always wanted to be a mom.
I continue to have that desire. I always wanted to create this sense of family. I come from a pretty small family, even out of the cousins, that, you know, I see and and know and talk to on my mom’s side. I’m the only one having kids and that just fuels this desire in me to have like a really big family. I’ve always wanted that. And that why helps me withstand the challenges, the late nights, the early mornings, the up all nights, the tantrums, the challenges that are yet to come that I don’t even know about. It never waivers my purpose because of my why. So I think hopefully that example helps you when you’re defining your purpose. Your purpose is sort of that overarching mission and your why is the internal motivation for that mission.
So why do this at all? Like why live on purpose? Why do I find it to be so helpful? And what’s the alternative? The alternative is living on default. And this is what most people do. We live on default at the effect of the primitive brain. And the primitive brain is wired for survival and efficiency. It is not wired to get you out of your comfort zone to create an extraordinary life. It’s also not wired to be happy. It’s, you know, sometimes referred to as that reptilian brain and it prioritizes survival. So it actually wants you to avoid discomfort, seek pleasure and conserv energy. And that my friends, is the opposite of living on purpose because it will take so much strength and discomfort for you to get outside your comfort zone and be the next version of yourself. So let me give an example.
I grew up with a dad who was an alcoholic and really used that as a reason for my dating patterns in adulthood. And what I realized was that was not getting me the results that I wanted. And through so much work on myself through hiring a very expensive,, coach and being a part of many coaching programs and just learning and trying different things, I was able to change my dating patterns and I think, you know, break the cycle of what could have been another dysfunctional, toxic marriage. And I didn’t do that. And it was extremely uncomfortable because I always used to say, well this is just who I’m attracted to. This is just, you know, how I see relationships and this is what I’m familiar with and all the things that are justified, but never got me the result of a healthy, stable, happy relationship.
Like I did not know what that was. And so for someone who grew up with a pretty stable, healthy family, you probably tend to date people and married someone who also, reflects that. And, and you created that as well. But it didn’t take any work in terms of personal development work. And that’s why this work is so personal. It’s one of my greatest, accomplishments. It’s something that I’m so proud of and it was extremely challenging. It was not what would have happened on default. On default. I would have been with someone who was similar to who I dated in the past who drank, who, partied, who would not have been the type of husband and father and life partner that I knew would create a stable, loving, safe home. So I wasn’t set up for that. So I had to override my default brain to create that.
I had to break that cycle, right? And that, that’s why they called a cycle because it’s so easy for your brain to just repeat patterns. So doing this work, living on purpose allows you to override the default brain. And it is challenging my friends, but it is so, so worth it. And in some areas it’s not as challenging as that. You might override your default brain to live a much healthier life than maybe you were accustomed to growing up. So you give up drinking, you give up sugar, you start working out more. And that’s challenging. The default brain doesn’t like that discomfort. It’s wired for survival and survival meant avoid pain run from that bear coming into the cave. And that was useful for evolutionary purposes, but not so useful when we’re talking about the discomfort of a little bit of hunger that you need to feel in order to lose some weight, to live out your purpose and your goal of, you know, being healthier, for example. So it really does require overriding your primitive brain to live a more purpose-driven life.
And when you do it, it is, oh my gosh, it’s so fulfilling. There is nothing better truly than living on purpose. And I say that with a very, growth oriented purpose that requires, a lot of discomfort, but there are purposes that don’t require as much discomfort. And again, I talk about this in the course where you know, your purpose is so personal. So if you have a purpose to just live a happy, easy life, that’s a valid purpose. We need happier, more easygoing people in the world. And yet living a happy life doesn’t mean you’re ignoring the negative. It actually means that you’re accepting the negative and you’re going to be happy with it. And so that takes some effort as well. And yet it’s a different type of life or if you want a peaceful life or, whatever your purpose is, it’s going to lead to a very, um, specific type of way of living and that will be different than someone else who has a purpose that’s completely different.
And what I love about this for my students and the members and the membership is that you get a choice. You get to learn these tools and decide what your purpose is, not just by default what your neighbors are doing or your peers or what you were taught growing up, but you’re learning how to create your own purpose or identify it and then more deliberately live into it so that your priorities reflect your purpose. And I think that is just such a beautiful gift you give to yourself and to the world. When you live on purpose, you act with intention. You embrace the discomfort of growth, you prioritize what’s meaningful for you, instead of seeking instant gratification. Your daily actions align with what truly matters to you. I have a perfect example of this like waking up in the middle of the night with your kids, not super enjoyable.
It’s probably uncomfortable. And yet if that aligns with the type of mom who you want to be and your purpose, then you’re going to do it. And you’re even going to do it with a decent attitude. You know, you might not be thrilled it’s not going to be your happiest moment of the day, but you’re not mad about it, you’re not complaining about it. You are not kinda living on default mode in that victim mentality. Why is this happening to me? You know, this is aligned with who I want to be. It’s a complete game changer because it’s a completely different experience. I personally go through this. I have gone through this and continue to use my purpose to help me stay out of that victim mentality and motherhood that’s so easy to fall into when really I’m the one creating all of this. I want to live this life.
I want to create a big family. I want, family values and to just be family oriented. And when I am so aligned with that, the hard stuff is still hard, but I’m not throwing a pity party. And so that’s the big difference that I think is really worth mentioning by living on purpose rather than default. You’re consciously choosing to rise above primitive impulses and guide your life in a way that aligns with your higher values goals and why. It’s about steering your life toward fulfillment, growth, and contribution rather than simply surviving. I like to think about a captain of a ship. If the captain isn’t steering the boat still ends up somewhere, but if the captain is steering even just a little turn of that wheel takes the ship in a completely different direction. That is what I love about intentionality and purpose. You can have fun, you can add spontaneity, but you’re doing it deliberately instead of based on what the primitive brain wants because my primitive brain wants in the moment lots of pleasure, it wants lots of m and ms, it wants, um, to over drink and Netflix and escape my life.
And that is not something that ever goes away. It’s something that you manage. And the reason it doesn’t go away is because we’ve taken, what was really useful for survival, like desiring pleasure, desiring apples from the apple tree. We’ve taken that and we’ve concentrated that pleasure. So now we have apple pie and now we have chocolate chip cookies, and now we have m and ms. And because in our modern world, there’s access to so much, false pleasure that I’m talking about here. It’s just something you can’t escape. But it is something that you can manage. So you can plan when you’re going to have the m and ms and the apple pie so that you do so intentionally, not so you do it at your own detriment. I think most of us can relate to the food example. So you don’t wake up and have your favorite dessert and then just eat it all day.
You know that one, you would probably get a stomach ache and it would not be useful for you to do that. It would harm your body. It would, it would, you know, cause there to be some negative consequences to your health long term. So that right there is being deliberate. Living on purpose allows you to create your life. It’s the only way otherwise you end up somewhere and who knows where it’s going to be? Who knows where that ship’s going to land, it’s going to land somewhere, but if you’re not steering it, it might not be somewhere you like. If you are steering it, it’s so much more likely to be exactly where you want to go. Now I want to dive into purpose driven motherhood. What does that even mean? I think it’s about approaching being a mom, approaching your family with intentionality, with a clear sense of direction rather than going through the motions or reacting to the daily challenges.
I talked about this in a reel on Instagram over @Mom.OnPurpose if you want to follow along, where I decided to unfollow and hide any accounts that kind of promote relatable motherhood. And this was hard to do because relatable motherhood posts, they feel really good and validating in the moment. So a relatable motherhood post might be something about just how freaking hard motherhood is without any upside. It’s not, oh, this is hard and we can do hard things. Let’s come up with solutions. It’s more like, let’s just complain about how hard it’s, and what I realized was that connecting over complaining about motherhood did not make me a better mom. It felt a little good in the moment, it felt validating in that moment, but it didn’t make me feel good. And the best example I have to compare this to is to think about like a professional athlete who is at the top of their game.
Do you think that after losing a game or not getting the outcome that she wants, after a long hard day, she gets on Instagram and looks at accounts of other athletes who are complaining, not winning, not doing a great job, and talking about how hard it is? Absolutely not. She is looking up ways to change, ways to be better, ways to solve the challenges, ways to improve the game, ways to win. And what I realized is that I’m not trying to “win” at motherhood to prove something about myself. I know that internally I am good, I am a good mom and I’m a human mom. So there are tons of things that I’m really good at and tons of things I’m not so good at.
And what that really means is that I can focus on improving skills just because that’s who I want to be, because that’s fun, because that’s aligned with my purpose. So for me as a mom to live more deliberately, I don’t want to be scrolling those relatable motherhood accounts at night because the mom who I want to be, the mom who’s learning those skills, the mom who is working on her mindset and believing in herself and knows, yes, this is hard, but this is aligned with my purpose and this is exactly what I want to be doing, that mom isn’t looking at content that validates the victim mentality, that mom is looking at content that motivates her, that inspires her, that helps her. And so that’s just a small example from my life. I find to be really helpful. So when you’re thinking about purpose-driven motherhood and you’re thinking about living more intentionally with a clear sense of direction and not just going through the motions and reacting to daily challenges or feeling like you’re at the effect of your life, like practically, what does that look like for me?
At a minimum, I’m not looking at the relatable motherhood content. Another part of purpose-driven motherhood for me is asking myself, how do I want to think? How do I want to feel and how do I want to act and answering those questions in that order? So for example, if my kids are struggling at bedtime, I want to ask myself, okay, how do I want to think about this? And then how do I want to feel about it? And then how do I want to show up? How do I want to act? And when I ask it in that order, it allows me to create a story that’s rooted in connection and love and respect for myself, for my kids, and for my family. It doesn’t mean it’s not hard, it doesn’t mean I’m, you know, super excited, bed times challenging, but I show up so much more loving towards myself and so much more loving towards my family.
So again, very practically, I’m not yelling. I’m expecting my kids to be basket cases. I am expecting to have to hold boundaries and validate feelings. I have a mindset that is so strong during those challenging moments because I’m living on purpose. I’m asking myself how do I want to think? How do I want to feel and how do I want to act? And I’m asking it in that order. In essence, purpose driven motherhood is about parenting with intention. It’s guided by your deeper purpose. And with that, it reflects the life that you want to create. It reflects your priorities, it reflects the mom that you want to be. And you are not supposed to be the mom, like your kids’ friends’ moms or like the mom across the street or like your mom. You are supposed to be the exact mom who you are being. And sometimes that means you make mistakes and you mess it up and you get it all wrong because you’re a human mom.
I’m right there with you my friend. And that’s why I love these tools because they make space for that. They make space for repair, restoring the relationship. They make space for reconnecting. They make space for self-compassion. It really is such a beautiful journey of growth that I’m just so happy to be on, and I’m so happy to be on it here with you. And as your children grow and as you are modeling these tools, you are growing and you are seeing the benefit of the tools in your life and the ripple effect goes to them as well and to your family. And I just think that is so incredible and amazing, and I just have to give a shout out to the members inside the Membership. There are so many of you who have teenagers who have adult children who are doing this work, and that’s because it doesn’t matter the age of your kids.
This work is really about mom, it’s about you and your kids can be any age and they can experience the benefits of your growth and you of course get the benefits of them. And I just think it’s work worth doing as I like to say. It really is when you understand how to manage your mind so that you can live your life on your terms more deliberately by overriding that primitive default brain. It’s like you’ve cracked a huge code towards life. And I don’t think there’s anything better because no matter what challenge arises, no matter what’s going on in your marriage or with your in-laws, you can pull out your tool belt of tools and pick out the right hammer or the right wrench or the right screwdriver and apply it. It doesn’t mean there isn’t negative emotion. Oftentimes there is. And yet you feel equipped like you can get through anything and you can create anything.
Oh, I could go on and on all day, my friends. I love talking about purpose, I love talking about motherhood, all of the things. So you have to come inside the Mom On Purpose Membership and get this course on Purpose, Priorities, and Balance. I go much deeper into how to define your purpose, how to create your list of priorities, what not to do with respect to priorities, how many priorities you should have. And then what I didn’t talk about today that’s in the course is how to create a sense of balance in your life and how to get out of the kind of negative toxic mindset that your life is out of balance. And of course, it’s not just about this class, you get that added accountability from me 24 7, ask a Coach forum, you can pop in anytime. I’m the only one answering those questions in there.
So you will get coaching directly from me to help you through any challenge that you are facing. The last thing that I want to leave you with is a tool that you can start using today, which is to start telling yourself the identity that you want to create. So if you listen to this and you’re like, this sounds great, Natalie, but I’m really spontaneous and I don’t know if this is going to work for me or this sounds great, but you know, my career is so overwhelming right now. I have so much going on and you’re just not really sure where to start. This is super easy and effective every day. Start with a positive intentional identity statement and I’m going to give you one right here. You ready for it? Write this down. I’m a purpose driven mom. Start your day with that. I am a purpose driven mom.
Now if that doesn’t feel believable to you, use this one. Every day I’m becoming a more purpose driven mom. So you see how I added some qualifiers in there so that it’s still future focused and allows you to live into who you want to be. So take one of those, use them every day, and I promise you, through that lens, you will live more deliberately instead of taking on the identity of the past. And that is just one of the little tools that you can get started with to live more purposefully. Thanks for chatting with me today, my friends. I will talk with you next week. Take care.
Thank you for being here and listening. Now, head on over to momonpurpose.com/coaching to learn more about the Mom On Purpose Membership, where we take all of this work to the next level.
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