Juggle Struggle blog

Everyday life as a working parent can feel like hard work. It is hard work!

Your young children have you up at the crack of dawn, getting them dressed is like wrestling an octopus, breakfast literally involves getting the vacuum cleaner out, and you end up trying to play Batman rescues while showering and getting dressed yourself. This is all before 8am and a full day’s work. Gah. 

Then you look on Instagram and see that other mothers are in the same boat as you. Thank goodness! It’s not just you with a child who still isn’t dry at night, or who is exhausted by the mental motherload, or who picks up all the chores because nobody else does. You are not alone. 

But (you had to know there was a but coming) – I think we often overlook the wins. Somewhere inside all of the juggle struggle there are good things to celebrate. Successes.  Things that go well, (because we made them go well!) – and I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit for those things. 

I’m not talking about celebrating massive achievements on the daily. You might not have just published a book, or run a marathon, or found a cure for a horrible disease. (On the other hand, you might have done those things and if so, ALL the hats off to you!!!) 

I’m talking about patting yourself on the back for the ‘small’ stuff: 

• The dentist gave your child’s teeth a clean bill of health because YOU are doing such a good job of making sure they brush them twice a day.
• You braved some parallel parking and ruddy well pulled it off. 
• You prioritised doing yoga in the mornings and noticed you have felt better for it.

None of those things are solving world peace – but they are pretty good wins in the daily juggle struggle aren’t they. 

If you’re not already celebrating your wins – here’s a few ideas on how you could start: 

• Start journaling – if you like physical writing, you can do this in a book, but I prefer using an app called the Five Minute Journal. It only has a few questions for you, so it’s really easy to fill in every day. It helps me focus on what went well about the day and what I can celebrate. Plus it sends me reminders so I don’t often miss completing it.

• Weekly review – I’m a big fan of a weekly review process (more on that in another blog!) – part of mine is to review the previous week and identify my top 3 wins. I usually pick one from work and 2 from home / family life. Making this a regular part of my weekly routine helps me remind myself that for all the things I haven’t done or could do better next time, I did a great job of at least 3 things.

• Find an accountability partner – one of my dear friends and I used to send each other WhatsApp voice notes throughout the week to tell each other about what had gone well in recent days. Having this as a regular part of daily life was pretty uplifting; both saying and hearing about wins and successes. It also made me take notice more of when wins and successes were actually happening, as I’d think “Oo I can send my friend a voice note about this later!” 

This article from Psychology Today explains that our brains light up the most when thinking about the negative stuff. That’s why it might feel a bit weird to start thinking about and celebrating your wins and successes – that’s not hard-wired into us. If we can start to practice it, the juggle seems like less of a struggle because we can see how we’re winning, and not just how we’re struggling. 

So start celebrating your wins and encouraging others to do it too. Next time you see that Insta post about finding working parent life hard you can remind them; “but you’ve done a really great job of this instagram post!” 

Do you have any tips for celebrating your successes? Post them in the comments!