Take a hot bath, they tell us.
Read a book.
Go for a walk.
Keep a gratitude journal.
Practice self-care.
There is nothing wrong with any of these things. A quiet walk can restore us. A good book can inspire the mind. A long bath can offer a space for relaxation.
And yet many working mothers discover that these small pieces of advice, while helpful, never seem to address the deeper exhaustion beneath the surface.
Perhaps that’s because what we often call self-care really feels like recovery. Recovery from a life with too many expectations and from a life that does not align with the lives we seek.
Perhaps what we seek when we talk about self-care is bigger than the bathtub.
Perhaps it’s the slow work of building a life that reflects our values. A life with enough room for rest, creativity, meaningful work, relationships, and joy. A life that honors the season we are in while still making space for the person we are becoming.
The goal is not to escape our lives for an hour; the goal is to create a life we are not constantly trying to escape.
As writer Annie Dillard observed, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I write this quote everywhere to remind me that each moment of our regular lives creates one part of our entire lives, just as each individual brick builds a wall.
We are in the business of creating our lives, of laying out the layers moment by moment until we have crafted something that is truly, uniquely ours.
Most of life is not lived on vacation or during rare moments of solitude. It is lived in ordinary Tuesdays, school pickup lines, meetings, family dinners, and evenings at home.
If we want a life that feels whole, self-care must reach beyond the bathtub or the journal and into the structure of our days.
“No, we don’t need more sleep. It’s our souls that are tired, not our bodies. We need nature. We need magic. We need adventure. We need freedom. We need truth. We need stillness. We don’t need more sleep, we need to wake up and live.”
Brooke Hampton
5 ways to build a life of true self-care
Honor the Season You Are In
A 25-year-old recent college graduate starting out at an entry-level job with a toddler at home is very different from a 42-year-old seasoned executive with a teenager. A 42-year-old seasoned executive with a toddler is also different from the 25-year-old.
First, take stock of where you are—what season of life you’re currently in—and consider how that season affects what life should look like for you.
Journal Prompt
Reflect upon these questions:
- How old are your kids and how is that affecting the way your life looks right now? How long does this stage of your kids’ development last? What milestones ahead might move you to a different season of life? (For instance, are your kids in daycare and moving to elementary school? Or are they learning to drive soon?)
- How long have you been at your job? Are you at the level you want to be in your career, or are you seeking something else? How does your current work season affect the time, energy, and attention you have available for other priorities?
- What responsibilities are currently filling your days? Which of those responsibilities are temporary, and which are likely to remain for years to come?
- What demands on your time feel especially intense right now? Are these pressures part of a short season, or have they become part of your long-term reality?
- What opportunities are available to you in this season that may not be available later? What opportunities might become available in a future season?
- What activities, hobbies, or dreams have you placed on hold? Are they gone, or are they simply waiting for a different season of life?
- What aspects of your current season bring you joy? What would you miss if this season ended tomorrow?
- What expectations are you carrying that may belong to a different season of life? Are you trying to live as though you have the freedom, energy, or responsibilities of a different stage?
- Where do you find yourself saying, “I’ll do that someday”? Which of those dreams truly need to wait, and which might be possible to pursue in a small way right now?
- What resources do you currently have available (time, money, support, flexibility, health, experience)? How do those resources shape what is realistic in this season?
- If you knew this season would last only two more years, what would you want to prioritize? If you knew it would last ten more years, how might your priorities change?
- What does success look like in this season? Is it achievement, growth, stability, presence, healing, connection, or something else entirely?
- When you look back on this season five years from now, what do you hope you’ll be glad you spent your time doing?
Some activities ebb and flow, depending on the seasons. Hobbies might not be possible in all seasons of life. That’s okay.
Some seasons happen once, and they’re over. For instance, I am currently in a golden stage with my children. At six and ten years old, they are well out of the toddler stage and entering the great adventure stage—a beautiful season of doing massively fun activities. In eight short years, my son will be officially an adult. This is not a season that will ebb and flow. When the season is over, another will begin, sure, but this one will not return. It’s not a hobby I can pick back up later. Therefore, I will cherish this season while it lasts. I will not miss it chasing an Instagram-worthy home.
Recognize that the season for spotless houses and excessive hobbies may not be this one. Recognize what season you’re in and think about how that affects your life. Try to cherish what you can about it.
Recognize the Choices that Exist
Sometimes, it helps to get all the options out there. Spreadsheets and whiteboards can help us do that.
Excel spreadsheets have become a favorite joke of my husband’s. Anytime a big decision needs to be made, he comments that it’s time for a good ol’ spreadsheet.
If it’s not a spreadsheet, it’s a big whiteboard—or the living room windows—where I can write options.
I put all of the options down, from the most obvious to the most random. I get very real about what freedoms do exist.
For instance, a few years ago, my job made a major shift that jutted right into some of my values in life. My husband and I got out the spreadsheet and put every option we could think of on it. We considered selling our house, changing my job (and what options I might have in my career and outside of it), changing aspects of my children’s lives, changing my husband’s job to help cover things while I looked for a new job, etc. We wrote every option down, even the ones we hated.
Beside each option, we wrote the potential costs, the pros, the cons, and other notes to help guide our decisions.
Now that a decision has been made, I feel good knowing that other options exist—and I have catalogued them—and that this is the option I have chosen. I know that my life is intentional.
But my life wasn’t always this way. I spent years wandering between jobs, practically falling into my career because of the people around me. Looking back, I’m amazed at how little intentionality I put into my career choice. I let other people choose my direction. That’s why I am so adamant about understanding my life’s options and ensuring that the decisions I make align with who I want to be.
Living with intention means knowing the options available and actively choosing one path over another. It means recognizing which paths align most closely with the life you want to lead. How do we know which path we want? We turn to our values.
Let Your Values Become Your Compass
What do you value?
What is important to you?
What is not important to you?
Life is finite, and every “yes” to one thing is a “no” to something else. Therefore, it’s important that we become clear about what is and is not important. The values we live by are principles that shape our decisions and priorities.
Journal Prompt
Take a few moments to reflect:
- When do you feel most alive, fulfilled, or like yourself?
- What moments in your life are you most proud of, and what made them meaningful?
- What frustrations or disappointments keep surfacing in your life? What values might be hidden beneath them?
- If someone looked at your calendar and your spending over the last month, what would they assume you value most?
- What do you hope your children learn from watching the way you live?
- At the end of your life, what would you want people to say mattered most to you?
As you reflect, look for recurring themes. The answers may reveal values that are already guiding your life as well as values that deserve more attention in the season you’re in.
Once you’ve crafted your values, practice using them to make life decisions. Here are a few examples:
- Another mom asks if you and your kids want to come over to play, but you have a messy house and planned to clean it, knowing you have a busy week ahead. What do you do? If you value making and maintaining friendships with other parents, then you might choose the playdate. If you value the home being clean so you can start the work week in a better place, then you might decline the playdate.
- At work, you’ve been asked to be on a committee that might take extra time and add stress to your life. What do you do? If you value career advancement, then you might take on the extra work. If you are satisfied in your current position or feel the committee does not align with your work goals, then you might politely decline (or, if declining is not an option, you might choose how much time and energy you decide to put into the committee).
- Your child’s school is putting on an event, but it takes place during your work hours. Do you attend the event? Only you know the consequences of attending the event or going to work that day, and only you can decide, based on your individual values, what to do with your time.
The examples above consist of small, everyday decisions that working mothers face as our busy schedules place conflicting pressures on us.
Share the Weight of Life
I’m lucky that my husband and I share similar values and work through life decisions well. Sometimes, our day-to-day can get tricky, however, and it’s often important that we recognize the ebbs and flows of life.
For instance, my husband’s schedule is very stable. He works the same hours most days, and his life is pretty reliable. My work schedule, however, differs by the day and by the week. My kids’ schedule is in a similar state of flux, depending on the extracurriculars, playdates, and other factors. It is, therefore, important that my husband and I discuss our schedules and our changing needs to reflect the changing seasons of our lives together.
We often discuss what items we’re handling around the house. If I’m in a particularly hard season, he takes on some items that are on my list. Now, we routinely toss a few list items back and forth depending on the season. Dog vet visits—typically mine, but husband takes over when I’m busy. Meal planning—usually mine, but my husband takes over on busy weeks.
Of course, some items stay mine, and some stay his. The point is we communicate about what is in our buckets and release items (sometimes temporarily) when we need more help.
We also recognize each other’s needs and realize they may be different from our own. I know he cannot think in a house with screaming and chaos noise, and I can’t function in a house that has my children’s items on every surface available.
Journal Prompt
- What items are on your list that someone else can handle?
- Can that someone else be family or paid help?
Not every family can afford paid help, but if yours can, then you may want to outsource the jobs that either take a lot of your time or that would make your life significantly better. Here are a few ways to take items off your list through paid help (and some unpaid) so you don’t have to do everything yourself:
- Housecleaners (even just once a month can make a big difference)
- Yard services
- Handyman services
- Grocery pickup or delivery
- Prepared meal subscriptions
- Clothing services like Stitch Fix
- Amazon Prime subscription for household items
- Laundry fold and wash services
- Babysitting services
- Robot vacuuming and mopping
- Tutors for kids’ homework
- Automated payments for monthly bills (when applicable)
Smart outsourcing can free up 10 hours or more per week. Some working parents consider this outsourcing just part of having a two-income household. Some families try to simplify their lives so they don’t have to outsource. They might live in a condo or apartment, for instance, to avoid lawn services. As with other life decisions, the idea is to be intentional about living the way you want to live.
Trust the Road Ahead
According to Rethinking Happiness: Unlock the Secrets of Spirituality and True Freedom through Quantum Physics, happiness involves a deep trust that we are one with the universe and that the universe is working in our own interests. Different traditions express this idea in different ways. Some call it prayer. Some call it the placebo effect. Some call it manifestation. Whatever language we use, there is wisdom in recognizing that our perspective on life matters to the outcome.
“Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure.”
Bob Bitchin
It’s easy to get mired down by the daily struggles of our lives, but there’s a point where preparation ceases to be productive and becomes worry. Sometimes, we need to take a break and trust that we’ll be okay. That there are others who would dream of the problems that we fixate on. That the future will take care of itself.
I have not always been good at trusting the future. Anxiety about what might happen next week or next month often led me to overwork today in an attempt to prevent every possible setback. Sometimes that approach worked. I prepared thoroughly, and things turned out well.
But motherhood taught me a different lesson.
When my children were young, I began to realize that I could not anticipate every challenge that lay ahead. I could prepare, certainly, but I could not control the future. Instead, I learned to trust that my future self would be capable of meeting future problems. The woman I will be five years from now will have more experience, more wisdom, and different resources than the woman I am today.
True self-care is not eliminating every uncertainty from life. It is learning to carry today’s responsibilities without also carrying tomorrow’s.
We honor the season we are in. We make thoughtful choices. We live according to our values. And then, at some point, we release what is beyond our control and trust ourselves to meet the future when it arrives.
That trust creates space for something many of us desperately need: the ability to be fully present in the life we are living right now, without the need for a vacation or bath to feel content.
Here’s to living what matters most.