Setting Big Goals As A Mom With Very Little Time

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. How are we doing today? I hope you’re doing well. I just turned 40. Can you believe it? I cannot believe it. For someone who has done a lot of thought work, just in general, and then also specifically on aging, and I love the thought, aging is a privilege, 40 has felt very challenging for me, and I just want you to know that I’m a human being with a human brain too. And so the goal is not to always have perfect thoughts and to never feel frustration or resistance to what is, but instead to increase our awareness of our thoughts so that we have more leverage over the way that we’re thinking and feeling in our lives.

And so it’s not a problem for me that I’m feeling a little bit of resistance. I have no doubt this will be like an amazing decade and I’m, you know, just telling myself it’s okay, it’s okay that I am feeling weird and different. And, have some negative thoughts a little bit about turning 40. And again, just being with myself is huge. And I just want to offer that to you, that sometimes thoughts are stickier and harder to pull apart and come up with better feeling thoughts. And we still do the work, of course, but also like, be with yourself. Be kind to yourself. You as a high achieving woman, probably have a harsh, critical, judgmental, mean girl in there and that’s because it’s one of your strengths, overused. I think that’s like the easiest way to explain it. So it’s like, if you are really good at like being highly productive and getting things done and making a lot of things happen, you’re, you identify as like a high achiever, like the shadow of that, or like the inverse of that can be that you can be harsh or critical or judgmental.

And I’m just speaking from experience my friends. And so I really try to be kind and loving to myself, in a way that was a skill I built. I’m not always perfect at it, that’s for sure, but definitely one that has been, worthwhile and it just makes life better. So here we are over the hill, 40 years old. The last five years have been so crazy for me. I got married, I had three kids, and my life just continues to expand and it feels really awesome to be living into the future that I wanted to create. And that doesn’t mean that there aren’t challenges that aren’t, are unexpected, right? We can’t control things outside of our control and some things, things don’t turn out the way we want but also I just want to encourage you to do the work, to create the future you want and not feel limited by your past, or anything else really.

And that actually kind of dovetails really nicely into what I want to talk with you about today, which is setting big goals, big goals, my friends, very big goals as a mom with little time, do you feel like your time is maxed? I actually think that that’s why my weight loss philosophy and programs are just resonating with so many moms and have become so popular is because I figured out how to do more with less. And if you can lose weight and use less of your time, then you can use more of your time for other things instead of that goal. And so I want to talk a little bit about that. Not weight loss specifically, but more generally goals. I might use weight loss as an example, but I just want to speak to you. If you are someone who feels like you want to set and achieve a big goal, and you just think to yourself like, where is the time?

Or maybe like some of my clients, you don’t even give yourself permission to think about wanting a big goal because you think like there’s no time for that. And this comes up a lot, right? Especially, you know, if you’re a mom with little kids or you’ve been a mom for a while and you’ve been really focused on your kids, where it can come up is, you know, I’ll be coaching a mom and she’ll say like, I don’t know what I want. And this is interesting, right? Because a lot of our youth we spend wanting, like wanting whatever it is, wanting stuff, wanting friends, wanting good grades, wanting, you know, to get a job, wanting to get into certain schools, wanting to get married and have kids and have a family and a home. And, I think wanting as a skill is something we naturally have within us.

And I love that. And I’m careful not to squash that for my kids, right? Have you ever taken them somewhere, like let’s just say you take them to get ice cream and then they have this delicious ice cream and it’s so perfect and on the way home they’re like, wait, there’s a toy store. Can we go get that? Or the opposite, right? Like, you get ’em a toy and then they want another toy. Like the wanting doesn’t end and sometimes it can be mistaken for gratitude or lack of gratitude, right? On grateful kids, but that’s not what’s happening. It’s just like we are designed to want. And I think what happens after we create a lot of what we want, we sort of settle into a part of life where it’s not normal to want more. Like, it’s very normal to, hear your kids talk about what they want to do, like in terms of their career and also in terms of just hobbies.

Like, you know, my boys talk about playing soccer or, playing t-ball or playing lacrosse, and they talk about, you know, doing these little camps and activities and we talk about that with them and we encourage it. And, it’s interesting, right? Because that doesn’t really stop until, I don’t know, midlife maybe before that late twenties, early thirties, whatever timeframe that is typically like by 40 or in your forties, it’s not uncommon to stop wanting. You have done some things that you set out to do, right? I’m just using like the stereotypes of what I wanted. I wanted to get married and have kids and have a home, and I wanted to, have my career and like I set out to do all of those things and I have those things. And so what is most common is to just enjoy and have those things, and I’m all for that, right?

I love the work of having and enjoying and like expanding that. And also I think it is innate with us literally just look at our kids like they want so much. And, I think that’s a beautiful thing, but I think that we squash that, I think we stop wanting in part because it’s not socialized. Like when, you know, you get together with your girlfriends, are you talking about what you want to create for the next five years or what you want to do or what you want to achieve or, what goals you want to set, not because you need to be doing more. Like it could be about hobbies, it could be about, anything. Like what do you want to create? And I think, I think creating is so important because so much of our lives is consuming. And when you think about for yourself, like, what do I want?

What do I really, really want? If anything was possible, and I just think about so many things I like and so many things I kind of want. And then when I ask like, what do I really want and what do I want right now? I, I get different answers, right? So there’s lots of things I like, I just, I like hobbies. I like dancing. You’ve heard me say that before. I like flowers. I like cooking. I think it’d be really fun to take classes on, either cooking and or like how to make floral arrangements or hosting classes. Like I love learning. I think it would be so fun to go back and get my PhD for some of you listening, you’re just like me, where it’s like, school is fun and you would love to just continue it. But I don’t do those things and I don’t prioritize them right now.

Because when I think about what decisions I want to make for what I want to create in the next, I don’t know, five to 10 years, I don’t really see those as part of it. Maybe it’ll be it like my grandma era, maybe it’ll be when I retire, I don’t know. Or sooner it doesn’t have to wait. But there’s a difference in the answers in terms of priority. And so all I want to talk with you about here is, is opening up that part of you that has the desire to want something because you’re focused on the logistics and making things happen and the house and the kids and their activities and their dreams. And what I don’t want to say I want to help you avoid, but what I want to simply just bring your attention to and make sure you’re aware of is that like, it’s, it’s not about having something for yourself because your kids can be your purpose and I like subscribe to whatever you want your purpose to be.

But when we do it from a place of obligation instead of a place of desire, what can happen is long term when the kids leave the home, there’s this like loss of purpose versus a transition of purpose, right? We transition our purposes all of the time. And so I, you know, I think back to being a lawyer and even just like law school and getting my degrees and then practicing law and like my life then it’s so different than now. And my purpose is so different. And so it’s not just when kids leave the home, but I think when you’re more aware of doing what you’re doing from a place of desire instead of from a place of obligation, it allows you to continue that, you know, in this example after the kids are gone. And so if, let me just make this more specific.

If this is confusing. Right now, if you are taking care of the kids, taking care of the home, also working or any combination of that, and there’s this sense of duty or obligation or have to, then what could happen is that when that’s over when your kids leave the home, there can be this sense of either loss or confusion sometimes, resentment, because that wasn’t fueled by like desire. It was just sort of like happening and you felt this obligation to do it, versus this is my desire of who I want to be right now. And then, you know, when this season changes or ends, however that looks, I’ll come up with a new desire and purpose. And I think if you’re cultivating desires and wants along the way while raising kids, it can be extraordinarily helpful because then you never feel like you’re like losing yourself in motherhood.

I almost wasn’t going to say that because I think it’s so, controversial, but that’s just a thought. And I know what people mean when they say that, but it’s an optional thought, right? You get to decide how much of your identity you want to be in motherhood. And I believe, and this is for your sake and you know all of our sakes, that there is no right way. There’s your way and there’s the way that you want to “balance” the hours in your day and balance your attention and show up. And that’s going to look different for all of us as it should. I love the mantra. Her life isn’t supposed to look like my life. Your life isn’t supposed to look like her life, right? And so coming back to what do you genuinely want can be so, so helpful. Now, I don’t know about you, but I love following like influencers, particularly like on Instagram who have like these huge families and these moms who are like so genuinely happy, happy and deeply devoted to like their 10 kids and they’re homesteading.

And I’m like, maybe in another lifetime that was me, right? And it’s not me right now, and that’s okay. And I appreciate that. And I see their joy and their devotion to their family, and it’s not coming from a sense of obligation or like a sense of losing themselves. Does that make sense? And so all I’m offering to you here is that when you are tapped into your own desires, whatever you’re doing, whether it’s split between 10 things or just one thing, it will feel very aligned. And we have to take a step back from all of the things that we like we’re told to do, or we’re just ideas given to us that we set out to do and then to do. And redecide, is this a life I want to create, right? We’re just living this one life. And so however old you are, for me, it’s 40, right?

It’s deciding, okay, is this the life that I want to continue to create? And what do I want to be different in the next five years and in the next decade? And it can just feel so empowering to know, okay, I do want to be spending so much time with my kids and devoted to my kids and I don’t think I’m losing myself because I don’t subscribe to that. And also I have these desires and I’m growing my clients and my business and serving them and helping moms with their mental and emotional wellbeing and helping moms lose weight. And it’s all just exactly what I want and I want to double down on all of it in the next five to 10 years. And I know that from a place of wanting and from a place of desire, not from a place of obligation. And so, I don’t know, I called this, big goals because I think that so many of us just think in the day-to-day logistics and our calendars are full and we want them to be full.

But I think it’s so important too to just take a step back and just ask yourself like, what kind of life do you want to create? And are there things that you want to do during this season that you’re not doing? I think that’s a really useful way to think about it because there might be things that you want to do, but when you think about it in terms of this season, the answer might be like, no, right? Like, I would genuinely love to get my PhD. It’s something I think, you know, would just be so fulfilling to me, but I’m not doing that right now. I don’t feel like I’m missing out. I don’t feel like,I might be like too old to do it. I might never do it, my friends, that’s not a problem. I might do it. I just know that it’s something that I like.

It’s in my idea cloud. I don’t want to do it right now and maybe I’ll do it later and maybe not. It just sounds interesting to me. I like school, I like learning. I think that’d be really cool. On the other hand, after I had Baby Jack, it’s so crazy, it’s already a year and a half ago. He’s 18 months old. I knew I wanted to lose the weight and that was a really big goal. I had very little time if we want to use time language like that, right? What I mean by that is my time was filled with being primary childcare of my three kids under four years old at the time I was running my coaching practice, typically working like 15 ish, maybe 20 hours a week, you know, husband working full-time. I like to say this because it’s just important to, to know that it’s not like I was just sitting around and had all of the childcare and a personal chef and husband’s not working.

Like, it’s just different, right? So my time was maxed and still I decided, you know what? I want to lose this weight. I do not want this to be a someday goal. And so there are things for you that you may have not given yourself permission to want because you don’t think you have the time. I’m not really talking about the like, oh, that sounds cool stuff. Like, that’s kind of like the PhD thing for me. It’s like, that sounds cool maybe one day, but not right now. I’m talking about like the 50 pound weight loss goal that I like, knew I really deeply wanted. There might be something I just want to invite you to ask yourself, like, what is it that you want that you don’t have? And I want you to focus your wants on you Don’t be wanting things for other people.

Like I really deeply want my husband to be different. No, that’s not what we’re talking about here. Or we’re talking about goals that you want for yourself that you want to achieve, maybe that you haven’t even started yet. Or maybe that you have. Like, I love my weight loss story as an example of this, right? ’cause it made no sense in terms of like my circumstances. It would’ve been very easy to say, I’m just going to wait on this. I’m going to push this off or whatever. And for me, it just wasn’t an option. It just was not, and the desire there was so strong and so I just made it happen. I figured out how to lose more, doing less. And it’s, it’s literally now my lose more with less method. And I’ve helped so many moms with it already. And it’s so crazy to think like at the time that desire for me to do something that made no sense in terms of time turned into now something that helps so many people.

And so I, I use that as an example because I want to invite you to think about what it is that you want. And it doesn’t mean that you all of a sudden have to start doing it like today, right? There’s no pressure. The first step is just becoming more aware, more aware of what you want, that you’re not even giving yourself permission to want. And I like to think about time as expansive. I’m not typically like super woo as a person, but with time I get very woo, it was actually pretty difficult for me to name this podcast, with very little time because that doesn’t even make sense, right? But we just use it as common language. So I, I knew you would know what I mean, right? When I say with very little time. But really time exists as we experience it.

And so you have the time that you have and then you have decisions to make about how you want to use it. Now all of us have different resources of course, but given your circumstances with the time that you have, how do you want to spend it? And I think about how much time we spend, like thinking about and investing in our kids’ desires and how much literally money we spend on their activities and how it’s so different for us and why that is. And how I want to be an example of the opposite. And I want to spend money and invest in myself and show my kids that the growth is not done and that whatever it is, midlife and onward is a time to continue to grow. And that really gets to the heart of how I think about life in general and how I think it’s a continued growth journey.

And I think by thinking about it in this way, it’s like an onion that continues to unfold, that continues to peel back the layers. And we have a part in that and God has a part in that and the universe or whatever you believe in. But when you think about it in this way, it can be very fun and very exciting. And instead of the typical like, okay, well you set out to do what you’re going to do and now we’re just going to think about trips, and that’s it, right? It’s kind of what I see a lot of or just so it’s more most common. And then like, saving for retirement. That’s it. It’s like what trips are you on? Are you saving for retirement? Instead it’s like, what do you want for your life? And if that feels too big, it’s like, okay, what do you want for the next five years?

vWhat are you doing that’s different? What goal do you want for yourself? Is there a goal like, you know, with your health, like the losing 50 pounds or, getting fit or it might be something totally different. You might feel super called to go back to school and it might make no sense, but you just might know this is exactly what you’re supposed to do. It can energize you in a way that I don’t think anything else can. And it doesn’t have to be something for your health. It doesn’t have to be something for your career. It could be anything. And this is why I love this exercise and I love thinking about like your own desires because you can’t look externally for them. You just ask yourself, what is it that you really, really want? Even just in the next five years, if anything was possible for you to create.

Again, we’re not going to the place where we’re trying to change other people. We’re talking about goals you know, it could be habits, it could be,health related, it could be travel related. It could be you want to go to however many countries or something like that, anything. But when you tap into what you want and you just give yourself permission to dream big, I think it’s very expansive and exciting. And then, you know, the laundry doesn’t matter as much it puts things in perspective. And, and yes, I still do the laundry, but I don’t really care if it’s folded that much. And again, I think when you think about the life and what you want to create and what you want to do and who you want to be and what you want to create, it can feel so inspiring and energizing and the time’s going to pass anyways.

So whether you use it intentionally or not, whether you set and achieve your big goals or not, you will likely get the privilege of experiencing that time. So how do you want to use it really? And thinking about your priorities for yourself, for your family, for your kids, and thinking about all of it together and like, what does that look like? Like I think about how I had all my kids pretty quick and how it’s been like the best kind of hard and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And just like reaping the benefits of that now and seeing Jack be a year and a half, I’m like, oh my goodness. Even thinking back to like two and a half years ago is when I found out I was pregnant with Jack. I’m like, oh my gosh, that was so long ago, five years ago with Robert.

Like, it’s just crazy. And Henry in the middle there, it’s just, it, it goes so fast. And so I’m so proud of how I used the last five years and I want to be just as proud of the next five years. And it doesn’t mean doing more. I’m not proud because I do more. I’m proud because I was intentional with how I wanted to do it. And so it might be the next five years you want to stay home with one of your kids who received a diagnosis and really be the primary care taker for your child who has unexpected challenges, right? You would be so proud of yourself because you made that decision ahead of time. I’m thinking of a specific person actually who talked about that. She’s very career oriented and she made that decision and you could just tell this was like years later she was reflecting back and she was so proud of that.

And so I’m not talking about, like you need to set and achieve these big goals in order for you to be proud of yourself. I’m talking about just thinking about the next handful of years, the next couple of decades even. Like what’s on your heart? What desires do you have? What do you want to create? Because when you live in alignment with that, it feels pretty dang good. You’re like, yes, this is what I want to create. I’m creating it. Dream big my friends, don’t let time stop you. You may have decisions to make with respect to time as you get to implementing it, but even if it takes longer, like who cares, right? I think that my business would be, I don’t know how much more in revenue if I didn’t have kids like 10 x, right? Maybe not that much, but it would probably be a lot bigger than it is now.

But I wouldn’t trade that for the world. So is it taking me longer to achieve my business goals because I prioritize my family goals? Yes. And am I so proud of that? Yes I am. And so don’t let, it’s going to take longer stop you because the time’s going to pass anyways. So if it takes double the time, okay, you’re still doing what you want to be doing. And that’s really what this is about. It’s about you not using time as the reason why you can’t create the life that you want. Think deeply or lightly, right? Think intentionally about what you want, what is it that you really, really want? And think about the next handful of years and is there a goal that you want to work on? And what might that look like for you?

And just start dreaming about your, your future. And I just love these exercises. I think they can be so inspiring and motivating, especially in the thick of it, as we like to say, in the middle of the chaos, right? You gotta tap into yourself and give yourself a moment to dream. Not in like a pie in the sky kind of way, but in like a real, I’m creating my life kind of way. Alright, my beautiful friends, I will talk with you next week. Take care.