How I Reset My Routine to Feel More Fulfilled
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As a stay at home parent, it can be hard to find personal fulfillment - something outside of parenting or relationship fulfillment. It can also be hard to realize that you aren’t personally fulfilled until you see someone who is to the tenth degree.
Enter Dan Levy.
The other day when I was resting after an allergy attack, I watched the behind the scenes special of Schitt’s Creek. The special went into detail about how depicting LGBTQ characters in such a positive way had inspired millions of people and their parents to treat the LGBTQ community with compassion. As I watched the tears fall down Levy’s face at hearing this, I saw the most beautiful representation of fulfillment. Something that he had created and loved as his own baby had inspired the world.
Now, I don’t anticipate anything I will do will have an impact anywhere near that volume, but why not try? I realized that I wanted to do two things:
Create something
Inspire others
The struggle was when in the world will I have time for such a lofty goal. Luckily, this realization came to me on a Wednesday which is when my husband and I schedule a big brain dump. I was able to unload all this information on him that night, and he was incredibly supportive. He asked me how we can make that happen, and he suggested identifying how to make these changes on the short term and the long term.
Here’s the process that we went through. It can be translated to your circumstance once you identify what you want or need to feel personally fulfilled.
Step One
Of course, identify that you are not 100% happy with your circumstances and determine what will make you feel fulfilled as an individual not as a parent, spouse, etc.
Step Two
Consider how you can make this happen in the short term - the quick fix. For me, I needed to find a way to have more time for personal creativity. I am creative all day with conflict resolution between the kids and songs that I make up and crafts but none of that really fills my cup in the same way.
My husband offered that I take the early morning - the first two hours of my day (each day) as creative personal time.
Step Three
Equipped with the luxury of nearly two hours daily (WHAT?!) to make this happen, I had to develop systems to make the most of it. Taking this time limits time spent with family so I want to capitalize on it. My favorite organization tools to make good use of my time are:
Sticky notes
Golden Coil planner
Coffee
A lined notebook
Le pen pens
Google Keep
Google Calendar
Trello
Step Four
With the time and tools mentioned above, I am now tasked with identifying what tangibles I want to create. As a reminder, my goals are to create something and inspire. As I already have this blog as a creative outlet and can constantly be creating content in terms of the written and photographic, that will check the box for creation.
Now, the tricky part is inspiring others. I am still working on what this looks like for me. I know that I have a few gifts/skills that could be helpful to others - mostly busy parents in a season of overwhelm. In addition, part of inspiring others requires ‘others’ - a community. So that is my next step - more on this in the future!
Step Five
Here’s the long term fix. This is again my husband’s idea - I hate it when he’s so damn smart! He suggested quarterly mental health holidays for each of us. We are lucky to be within driving distance of a family beach house so we have a location to which we can easily escape. This will be a two day personal retreat every quarter during which time I can work on whatever I want or need without feeling guilty about leaving my motherhood duties in the proverbial dust.
Step Six
All of this is such a luxury - having an insanely supportive partner who wants the best for me and is willing to sacrifice his own time and sanity to make it happen, having a beach house nearby at zero cost to which we can escape, and having the tools to work on this. This fact is not lost on me. Practicing gratitude in all of this is essential to my mental health.
That’s the game plan. After having written this down, it seems silly that I have to write an article on how to find fulfillment as a stay at home parent. However, now more than ever I think parents with more traditional, out of the house careers, are able to see first hand how all consuming and exhausting it is to be ‘Mom’ 24/7. It is simple to get lost in the whirlwind of school time, play time, meal time, and nap time and just collapse into a pile of mush at the end of the day never realizing that you didn’t do a damn thing for yourself all day. Realizing this and tackling it before you lose yourself is the first step to personal fulfillment.
