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MODERN MOTHERHOOD TOOLS | 3 of 4: HOW TO FILTER OUT WHAT'S NOT IMPORTANT IN YOUR LIFE

 Modern Mommy Doc


PUBLICATION DATE:

Nov 01, 2017

MODERN MOTHERHOOD TOOLS | 3 of 4: HOW TO FILTER OUT WHAT'S NOT IMPORTANT IN YOUR LIFE

 Modern Mommy Doc

CATEGORY: NEW MAMA + MAMA WELLNESS

This week we're deep diving on one of the most important barriers to self-care.


Let's talk about step number three:


Perhaps the best skill you can learn as a mom is how to filter though society’s noise, false messages, and to-dos. I remembered the importance of filtering this last week. I was sitting on my yoga mat, eyes closed, trying to breathe. The lights were dim, the music was just right, the instructor’s voice was calm and melodic as she guided the class in getting centered and getting comfortable, but I just couldn’t seem to focus. It’s a shame, really, given that I spent all week arranging for that one hour—paying extra for my sitter to stay with my youngest at home, timing a business meeting to start directly after I was done, even putting off more “important” errands in the name of self-care.


Yet, somehow, my mind kept flitting in and out of focus despite multiple attempts to bring myself back to the present moment. I was already onto the rest of the day in my head, and somehow also back to yesterday, where I was analyzing an in-office interaction and questioning my clinical decision-making process on a patient’s particularly tough condition. Yep, my filter system was broken.


The day’s exercise session was a loss. So what? As I walked to my car after the class and out to the rest of my life, I thought about the bigger picture—about what the class represented, about how many of my self-care attempts are affected by my ability to properly filter. I thought about how much time we all waste, especially as mothers, unable to get past the noise, the false messages, and the endless, meaningless to-dos that face us every day. About how, if self-care really is about trying to achieve some type of balance, it’s our filter system that—nine times out of ten—keeps us from actually getting anywhere with our attempts. 




Filtering Out the Noise


How much time do you spend on your phone? I’m not judging, I’m just asking, because I often have to spend a lot of time on my phone (mostly due to the nature of running a blog and a business and promoting both on social media) and I notice that, when I’m on it without a specific task in mind and without a plan to get off of it as fast as possible, my whole life ends up filled with noise.


I follow a link on the internet to a story and it leads me to some other worthless distraction, I scroll through social media and I get sucked into watching some viral video, I hang out online and get bogged down in pictures of professionally-decorated homes that I can’t afford. It’s all noise, and it eats away at the precious moments I do have to actually do what feeds me, what restores me, and what builds me up. 


So, what can we do to get rid of some of the static that clogs our thinking and takes all our time away? I’m guessing you’re probably not going to throw your phone into a pool anytime soon, but what if you worked on consciously setting aside times for yourself throughout the week without any devices, even if it was only twenty minutes at a time? What if you purposefully put your phone in a drawer for an hour or two? What if you minimized the way you used your phone sometimes instead of maximizing it? When we unplug, we leave more space for productivity and for connection–either with ourselves or with other people.


 


Filtering Out the False Messages 


The idea that you matter less than anyone else in your life is a false message, one so many of us buy into day after day. Why is it so hard for us to take good care of ourselves when we become moms? In part, because it feels selfish and indulgent. Because it feels like there are a million other things that we could be doing with our time that would be more productive for our families or would be more helpful to someone else.Because, when we become mothers, we are often seen primarily as caretakers and secondarily as human beings with basic needs. Each time we have a choice to take care of ourselves we also have an opportunity to choose what messages we’ll believe about ourselves and about our place in this world. We have a chance to choose truths over falsehoods. 




Filtering Out the To-Do's


All those to-dos for my family, myself, and my work that keep piling up in my head? Yeah, I could do without those. Moms who focus solely on getting things done miss out on life, plain and simple. Instead, think about how to lessen your load. If you have a partner, figure out a plan for dividing responsibilities along strength lines. No matter what your family construct, stop doing everything for everyone else. Get other people on your team. Let go of the tasks that don’t matter and give away the tasks that drag you down. You only have the time and the bandwidth to do so much—use the time you do have to narrow in on your priorities.


You do not have the time or energy to pay attention to everything or everyone around you. When we people please, get overwhelmed with tasks, and forget what's important, lose out on what really matters. 


Next week we'll talk about Step 4: How to Stay Realistic 



The Overwhelmed Working Mom Freebie

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ON THE PODCAST


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Episode Takeaways: This is not an episode about “how to grow a multimillion dollar business” or how to double your following overnight. I really shy away from talking about business because it’s disheartening to see that most of the people making online are people who are trying to teach you how to make money online. This is an episode that comes from many conversations I’ve had recently with people who are wanting to start a side hustle or even a full blown business, but are curious how to do that with the rest of life that’s going on around them. I’ve recently made a hugely drastic shift in my career and have moved from private practice into a company called Blueberry Pediatrics . It is a shift that still allows me to practice medicine as well as still running Modern Mommy Doc full time. The thinking behind this shift really is born out of these 8 tips I have about running a business while you’re working full time or maybe still taking care of your family. 1) Know your why. We’ve heard it a thousand times, but if we don’t know the driving force behind why we want to do a certain thing, it’s infinitely easier to stop doing it when things get hard. Ask yourself why you’re so committed to this one particular area. In my business, my why is to help, support, and encourage women (specifically working moms) so they don’t feel alone in their journey. So when I’m pulled away from my family for a time period or I’m exhausted from traveling, I remember the greater mission behind what I do. 2) Expect that you’re going to fail. I just pulled the plug on a project we had been working on at Modern Mommy Doc for two years: the Modern Mamas Club app. I thought it was going to be so valuable for moms, when in reality it was just duplicating what we already had. I learned so much through that process and at the beginning, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Failure is a natural part of growth. 3) Prepare to invest in your business. With your time, with your money, with your emotions. People ask me how I grew and I told them it took a lot of time and a lot of my own money. There were times that that was discouraging, but because all of this was tied to my why, I was able to push forward. 4) Figure out what you can outsource and what has to be done by you. At the beginning you might not have any money to outsource with. But set yourself up for success and know what you’ll hand off when you get to that point. Don’t waste time trying to do it all. 5) Network based on what you love & pay for good PR. When you want to grow your business, network with the people that you genuinely connect with, not just because you might get a sale. Figure out who it would be mutually beneficial for you to get to know. And when it comes to PR, you’ve gotta pay to play the game. PR isn’t for instant leads, but is also a long game like networking. You show up, do the interviews, and every once in a while something will pop and you might get a ton more exposure. 6) Prepare for other people to not be on your level and to try to pull you back down to theirs. No one wants the homeostasis to change. That’s why it’s so important to surround yourself (even virtually) who believe in you and/or who are on the same journey with you. It doesn’t have to be in the same industry, but look out for other working moms that you can get to know. 7) Give something back to yourself along the way. If you aren’t making a single dollar and giving it all away to the business, you’re down a quick path to resentment. I understand all the moms who just over-function and grind it out to get things done (I was one!) but you’ve got to get a reward from the thing that you’ve been putting so much into. A small way I do this is by working at a coffee shop a couple times a week. It reminds me that I’m so grateful for my job, that it’s flexible so that I work where I want, and that I’m in control of my life. A big way I do this is through a travel rotation with my kids and husband. Each trip I go on while consulting, I’ll rotate through taking one daughter, then the next, then my husband, then I’ll do a solo trip. These are trips they never would have been able to take on their own, and it’s a cool way my business gets to give back to my family. 8) The way you set up your business is a marker if you will be successful. Not the way you structure it, but the mindset you have around it. In fact, there are so many parallels between the way I run my business and the things I taught in my newest book, Doing It All: trying to build efficiency into how I do my tasks, batching my work, not spending extra time on stuff that doesn’t matter at all, swapping out for what others can do for me, pairing things that aren’t enjoyable with things that are, not letting things contaminate my time, and making sure my desk, home, and calendar are decluttered. More Blogs on this Topic: T he forgotten boundary: setting limits with yourself Thanks for the cookies in the breakroom, I’m still tired Wake up, working mama. Are you wasting your life? More Podcast Episodes on this Topic: T ranslating “mom skills” into “boss skills” How to be an ambitious, out of the box, career maker and an engaged mom How to claim your confidence as a working mom
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