Super Mom doesn’t exist: Re-evaluate expectations of yourself and your life

Many of us try to be Super Mom (me included) – but let’s be honest, she doesn’t exist. She is a figment of our imagination. Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate the expectations you’ve set for yourself and your life?

Balancing a family, career, social life, and other commitments made me realize I’ve set myself up for failure with unrealistic expectations for myself and my life. I can’t do it all.

I’ve been working on re-evaluating my expectations and learning not to “sweat the small stuff.” I still have days where I try to be Super Mom, but there are no benefits to my family and me when I try to be her.

There are many great resources to help you get started. Here are some things that worked for me.

Control what you can – your attitude. If you talk to any mother, you know that we all have chaotic lives to varying degrees. It’s how you respond to that chaos that matters. Embrace it. Laugh about it. Put it in perspective. Not every situation will bring out your best attitude. If the days you laugh it off outweigh the days you’re upset, then that’s success in my book.

Set realistic goals each day – I look at each day of the week and see what absolutely needs to get done and I tweak my schedule around it. A few weeks ago my younger daughter wanted to bake brownies for a school birthday treat. That night we had ‘free choice’ dinner where we ate what we wanted (within reason), baths moved to another night, laundry stayed in the bucket, and we baked brownies.

Decide what’s a priority and what can slide – Mommy blogger Jessica Fisher offers great advice on this topic. Since I have limited time after work, dinner, homework and reading are our priorities. Bath time coincides with gym class in the winter and every other day in the summer. Other activities are fit in, if there’s time, or left for another day.  

Share the responsibility – Ask for help from your husband and kids. If your kids are old enough, give them a list of age appropriate chores. This is hard for a control freak like me. You have to be comfortable with knowing that it may not be done the exact way you’d do it, but at least it’s done.   

You’re not alone – All of us know a mom who appears to have it all together. Don’t be fooled. If she’s human, she’s sacrificing something to have that picture-perfect life. Sure, I could have a ‘perfect’ life but at what expense – my sanity? my relationships? sleep?

Re-evaluating my expectations has helped me feel less stressed, happier, and more comfortable in my roles as a wife, mother and professional. We live out of laundry buckets more than I care to admit, we only make our beds when we have guests, we have piles of stuff that we move from room to room, and my house will never be as clean as I’d like it. And I’m okay with that. 

 

Do you have unrealistic expectations for yourself or your life? Have you recently re-evaluated your expectations? What worked for you?