Mommy Mojo: Suffering from Supermom Whirlwind Syndrome? 3 Must-Do Steps to Save Your Sanity

The world of a working mom can be a whirlwind – between the demands of our family, friends and neighbors and the demands of building a business. So often we feel pressured to take on more, do more, be more. In essence, we feel like we need to be a Supermom with a capital S.

Being a Supermom isn’t a realistic or sustainable goal. Every day you must make conscious choices about what you want in your life by saying no to those things that aren’t serving you and saying YES to slowing down to the pace of fulfillment and joy – the keys to living your best life.

3 Must-Do Steps to Save your Sanity

#1: Focus

Today it is truly impossible for an individual brain to keep up with every last thing that’s going on. This is hard to face—especially for a passionate student of life. I am an information sponge. I live to learn and learn to teach. You likely do your own version of learning and teaching every day.

Although my husband and I often playfully say to our kids as we drop them off to school, “Remember, you’re a sponge!” (a favorite line from Finding Nemo), we adults need to accept that being a sponge isn’t what it used to be. Gone are the days that you could wrap your brain around everything that comes your way.

Shift to being the person that holds the sponge and consciously decide what it’s going to do for you and how it’s going to do it. Now more than ever, it’s essential that you first determine what you want and how to get there and allow this to drive the information you allow in.

#2: Unplug

Technology fueled connections are available to us around the clock. Trying to plug into all that is going on all day everyday can quickly drain your energy. When you walk around with a constant attachment to a cell phone or social media network, you are allowing the slow and constant bleeding of energy. Your best life needs clear boundaries.

Time-outs are not just for kids. Simply sitting in silence on a regular basis brings tremendous mental, physical, emotional and spiritual benefits. It improves your memory and strengthens your mind’s ability to focus and pay attention while slowing your heart rate and lowering your blood pressure. It restores calm.

Turn off all technology and go put yourself in the corner. Start with 5-10 minutes every morning and evening. Focus on your breathing. As your mind wanders off (and it will), gently bring it back to your breath. Within a couple weeks of adding this simple practice to your day, you will noticeably improve your focus, attention, and memory.

#3: Just say “No!”

The world won’t stop knocking on your door. Other people want YOU to make THEIR life easier. Repeated requests are the name of the game as marketers work harder than ever to cut through the noise to separate you from your money and/or your time.

We are conditioned to say yes from a very early age. One study observing parent-child interactions in a grocery store found that parents said “no” to a child’s request 400 times more often than they said “yes”. These interactions leave deep tracks in our mind.

When you were a toddler, there was a joy in screaming “No!” It is likely that the moment you learned to say it, everyone around you who was bigger (which was practically everybody) immediately rushed in to provide positive reinforcement when you changed your answer to “Yes.”

Guess what? It’s time to head back to the “terrible twos”—not the screaming, rage-driven, primal tantrum, but the informed, civilized, simple, and grownup “No.” You are now big enough to say yes to things that delight and energize you and no to things that don’t serve you…and not have others bully you into saying yes.

The bottom line is this: to bring more order to your days, you must remember that you are the gate keeper. You get to say what comes in and what doesn’t. Saying no to stimuli or bright shiny objects that result in you being inattentive, scattered, or wasting your days on non-productive busyness is central to your peace of mind and success.

Want more help recovering your sanity and living your BEST life? Join Dr. Mollie Marti at her Make an IMPACT Live event!